Man accused of killing teen, leaving body in Isle of Wight deemed incompetent to stand trial

Published 12:14 pm Friday, December 29, 2023

A Newport News man accused of killing a Williamsburg teenager and leaving her body in a remote area of Isle of Wight County last January has been deemed incompetent to stand trial.

When 18-year-old Aonesty Selby’s family told police no one had seen or heard from the teen in two days, Aonesty’s aunt, Ebony Selby, and a group of family members headed across the James River Bridge the night of Jan. 13 to look for her niece. Following location pings from Aonesty’s cellphone, the search took them another 20 miles south through Isle of Wight, where they found Selby’s body on a dirt logging path nearly 4 miles outside the town of Windsor.

Three days later, the Isle of Wight County Sheriff’s Office and Newport News Police Department charged 22-year-old Andarius McClelland with killing Aonesty.

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In March, the court appointed clinical psychologist Elizabeth Wheeler of Midlothian to perform a competency and sanity evaluation at the request of McClelland’s public defender, Antoinette Bacon, who’d asserted in a court filing there was “probable cause to believe that the defendant lacks substantial capacity to understand the proceedings against him.” 

A handwritten note on an Aug. 3 court filing asserts McClelland “remains incompetent.” McClelland’s next court date is scheduled for Feb. 1.

McClelland is charged with second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of five to 40 years in prison. He also faces a charge of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.

Sheriff’s Office investigators contend in court filings that Aonesty left the Williamsburg home she shared with her roommate, Sabina Appel, at 1:18 p.m. on Jan. 11 for a date with McClelland, whom she knew as “Darius.” According to court filings, Aonesty received $30 from “Lucas Duke,” whom investigators allege is another alias for McClelland, via a CashApp account she shared with another aunt, and used that money to hire an Uber driver to take her to an apartment McClelland shared with his brother, Andricus.

The car, according to the filings, arrived at McClelland’s apartment roughly half an hour later. Andricus, according to the filings, told police that Andarius and Aonesty were both at the apartment the night of her disappearance, and that Andarius had asked to borrow Andricus’ 2021 Dodge Charger to give Aonesty a ride home. The car was seen at 10:47 p.m. on Jan. 11 leaving Isle of Wight and entering Newport News. Andricus allegedly told police it had been returned to him covered in dirt.

Andricus also allegedly told police he’d discovered his Glock 9mm pistol missing from a nightstand drawer after Andarius left with Aonesty, and that when he’d confronted Andarius about the missing firearm, Andarius had told him he’d “needed to get rid of the gun” and had sold it.

On Jan. 16, the state medical examiner’s office in Norfolk determined Aonesty’s cause of death to be a single gunshot wound.